| Bio en français : |
James Tenney est né en 1934 à Silver City (Nouveau-Mexique, ÉU), et a grandi en Arizona et au Colorado, où débutèrent ses études en piano et en composition. Il étudia à l’University of Denver, à la Juilliard School of Music, au Bennington College (bacc, 1958) et à l’Universty of lllinois (maîtrise, 1961). Parmi ses professeurs, on retrouve Eduard Steuermann, Chou Wen-Chung, Lionel Nowak, Carl Ruggles, Lejaren Hiller, Kenneth Gaburo et Edgard Varèse. C’est à titre d’interprète ainsi qu’en tant que compositeur et théoricien qu’il co-fonda et dirigea la formation Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble à New York (1963-70), et qu’il joua avec les ensembles de Harry Partch, John Cage, Steve Reich et Philip Glass. Actif en musique électronique et en informatique musicale depuis de nombreuses années, il participe au développement de programmes de synthèse sonore et de composition avec Max Mathews et d’autres aux Bell Telephone Laboratories durant les années 60. Il est l’auteur de plusieurs articles sur l’acoustique, l’informatique, la perception et les structures musicales ainsi que de deux livres: Meta + Hodos: A Phenomenology of 20th-Century Musical Materials and an Approach to the Study of Form (1961; Frog Peak, 1988) and A History of ‘Consonance’ and ‘Dissonance’ (Excelsior, 1988). ll est boursier de la National Science Foundation, du National Endowment for the Arts, du Conseil des arts de l’Ontario, du Conseil des arts du Canada ({acro:cac}), de l’American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, et de la Fromm Foundation. |
| Bio en anglais : |
James Tenney was born in 1934 in Silver City (New Mexico, USA), and grew up in Arizona and Colorado, where he received his early training as a pianist and composer. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College, and the University of Illinois. A performer as well as a composer and theorist, he was co-founder and conductor of the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble in New York City (1963-70). He was a pioneer in the field of electronic and computer music, working with Max Mathews and others at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in the early 1960s to develop programs for computer sound-generation and composition. He has written works for a variety of media, both instrumental and electronic, many of them using alternative tuning systems. He is the author of several articles on musical acoustics, computer music, and musical form and perception, as well as two books: Meta / Hodos: A Phenomenology of 20th-Century Musical Materials and an Approach to the Study of Form (1961; Frog Peak, 1988) and A History of ‘Consonance’ and ‘Dissonance’ (Excelsior, 1988). He has taught at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, the University of California, and at York University in Toronto, where he was named Distinguished Research Professor in 1994. He now holds the Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition at the California Institute of the Arts. |